Between 1844 and 1846, thirty-six ships brought a total of 5,257 German immigrants to the Port of Galveston, from where they were to begin their trek inland via wagon train to new homes in central Texas. Due to problems with transportation contracts, however, many of the new arrivals spent time stranded on Galveston's coastal beaches; four hundred of these unfortunates died of dysentery, typhoid, malaria, and cholera before making it to their destinations.
Some of these settlers headed for a new site located above the confluence of the Comal and Guadalupe rivers, where they established the town of New Braunfels. Unfortunately, many brought disease with them, causing a local epidemic of cholera that did not abate until 1847. As recounted by early settler Hermann Seele, "[a] number of immigrants...were given emergency shelter in a long open shed built on piles and covered with branches and thatch. There, the number of deaths rose to over three hundred. Only a few of the dead could be placed in coffins because of the lack of boards. During the summer as many as three—wrapped in canvas or blankets—were transported together every morning by a teamster...to the cemetery, where they were buried in the prescribed manner by the appointed gravediggers."
In response to this emergency, town leaders established a small cemetery high on a hill above the town. The first burial at New Braunfels Cemetery was that of Elise Catharina Reh Peter, who died of cholera on June 23, 1845. By the end of 1846, the cemetery held the remains of more than 300 victims of the epidemic, who had to be buried in a mass grave. This mass grave still exists, unmarked, today. My team developed a master plan for the care and protection of this cemetery and another within the town of New Braunfels, including recommendations for the commemoration of this disaster and its mass grave. For more information about this fascinating project, please contact me for a copy of the report.
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